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The Turing Scheme is currently signposted on the Scottish Government mygov.scot public services website, as well as on the website for the Scottish Funding Council.

Any action to promote the Turing Scheme will be for local authorities themselves to decide and report on.

It is the Scottish Government’s position that the UK Government’s Turing Scheme is not fit for purpose. It is a replacement scheme, which cannot match the breadth and scope of Erasmus+. With funding only guaranteed for one year, no provision for inward mobility to the UK, and no support being offered for adult education and youth work, Turing will see support for our most disadvantaged learners cut, and opportunities for our students, staff and young people reduced.

We will continue to engage with the UK Government to ensure Turing better reflect the needs of Scotland.

The financial support we have made available to businesses has, in the main, been predicated on the restrictions in place on specific businesses through legislation agreed by the Scottish Parliament rather than on sectoral classifications. Businesses were grouped by sectoral classification for the purposes of distributing the January Top up Grant and the Business Restart Grant but these grants were similarly awarded based on the impact of Regulations.

Eligibility for support can be found on the Scottish Government’s website including those businesses classified as Retail, Hospitality and Leisure businesses for the purposes of determining these top up payments. As Kennels and Catteries were not required to close or subject to any specific legislative restrictions on their operations, they were not eligible for support through the Strategic Framework Business Fund or associated schemes.

We did, however, set up the £120 million Local Authority Discretionary Fund specifically to support those businesses which were financially impacted due to COVID but did not qualify for other forms of financial support.

The level of capital investment in digital infrastructure in each financial year since 2015-16 is provided in the following table:

Ferguson Marine have strong links with the local college and have a thriving apprentice community. The yard currently have five apprentices who will complete their training this summer, and a further twenty four who will shortly be moving up into their second year.

The 2021 apprentice recruitment process is also underway, aimed at recruiting fifteen new apprentices for September 2021. The yard are also considering a Foundation Apprentice programme, and potentially taking apprentices into non-technical disciplines such as Finance and Human Resources.

We welcome the publication of The Change Programme, which sets out what needs to happen over the next year to ensure Scotland keeps its Promise to improve the lives of children and young people in or on the edges of care.

I wrote an open letter to Fiona Duncan, Chair of The Promise Scotland, setting out the Scottish Government’s response to the publication of The Change Programme. A copy of the letter can be found .

We recognise that there is still a lot of work to be done to ensure full implementation of The Promise by 2030 and we will continue to work with The Promise Scotland, Local Authorities, partners, families, children and young people to deliver the ambition of making Scotland the best place to grow up where every child feels loved, safe, respected and able to reach their full potential. We will #KeepThePromise.

Reducing flood risk is a priority for this Government and we will continue to support authorities to deliver actions that protect our communities. The Scottish Government engages regularly with local authorities, including Falkirk Council, on a wide range of flood risk management issues to ensure Scotland is resilient to the challenges of flood risk and climatic pressures.

Flood Risk Management Strategies and Plans are published every six years, as part of the duties of the Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Act 2009 (“the Act”). National and local working groups provide a forum for discussion on issues in relation to implementation of the Act including monitoring progress of the actions resulting from the Strategies and Plans. Most recently the Scottish Government met with local authorities at the SCOTS Flood Risk Management Group, which included Falkirk Council, at the end of May 2021.

Delivery of new fibre infrastructure is a key component part of a number of Scottish Government digital infrastructure programmes. It is therefore not possible to single out the costs solely attributed to fibre infrastructure.

The level of capital investment in digital infrastructure in each financial year since 2015-16 is provided in the following table:

We are committed to increasing the Scottish Land Fund (SLF) to £20m by the end of this parliament and the profile for this is currently being considered as part of the ongoing budget.

The SLF provides important support to communities and between 2016 and 2021, 232 groups were awarded a total of £39m. However, it is not the only source of funding available and we would encourage any community to consider all avenues when seeking to fund acquisition.

The Scottish Government microplastics monitoring programme began in 2013, and has undertaken annual surveys since that time. There have been nearly 400 locations sampled between 2013 and 2020. There is currently an insufficient data series to determine if a trend exists or to be able to say when a baseline may be determined. However annual surveys continue to gather data, in order to work toward determining a baseline and/or trends.

Flood Risk Management Strategies were published by SEPA in 2015. These set out proposals for 42 flood protection schemes which were prioritised according to their cost benefit ratio and taking into account a series of additional criteria, encompassing the environmental and social impacts of flooding.

It is for local authorities to commission and take forward these Schemes. In July 2016, it was agreed by Scottish Ministers and COSLA that 80% of the flood component of the General Capital Grant would be distributed according to the SEPA prioritisation of flood protection schemes set out in the Flood Risk Management Strategies. 40 of the prioritised schemes were deemed to be eligible for grant funding.

Of the 42 prioritised schemes 9 are complete, 5 are under construction and the others are at various stages of development. 7 other schemes commissioned by local authorities prior to 2016 have also been completed since 2016.